The Alliance of Latinx Minnesota Artists (ALMA)
To facilitate alliances among the spectrum of Minnesotan Latinx experiences in order to make visible our diverse artistic voices and practices.
OUR TEAM
Mission & Team
Founder
Nora Montañez is a Minneapolis-based, Peruvian-born actress, singer, educator, playwright and community advocate. Nora was raised in Paterson, NJ and holds a BFA from Florida Atlantic University. In Minneapolis Nora has worked with The Guthrie Theater, Children’s Theatre Company, Jungle Theater, Park Square Theater, The Playwrights’ Center, Mu Performing Arts, Mixed Blood Theatre, and many others. In Chicago, Nora has worked with Congo Square, Chicago Dramatist, The Revival, Something Marvelous, Teatro Vista and Court Theatre. Nora is a Breaking Ice Company Member with Pillsbury House Theatre, a teaching artist with Interact Center as well as a board member for Theater 45°. She was a 2018 Next Step Grant recipient as well as an Artist in Resident with Catalyst Arts and Center for the Performing Arts. Nora is the Founder of the Alliance of Latinx Minnesota Artists (ALMA), which facilitates alliances among the spectrum of Minnesotan Latinx artists.
Founding
Board Members
AnaSofía Villanueva is the Artistic Associate at History Theatre, a freelance stage director, and playwright. AnaSofía regularly performs and facilitates discussion centering diversity, equity, and inclusion for Pillsbury House Theatre’s Breaking Ice program. She has produced paneled discussion and readings of works that address social inequities, including a reading of her play, TENGO VOZ, at Mixed Blood Theatre. She has assistant directed at Mixed Blood and Guthrie Theater. Prior to her move to the Twin Cities, she attended the University of Idaho where three of her plays were produced: Amor del Alma, EXOTIC, and POLLUX. While in residence, she was awarded the Society of Directors and Choreographers Fellowship Award at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Her experience includes work in Portland, Oregon at theaters such as Artists Repertory Theatre and El Teatro Milagro.
David Melendez is a former US Navy submarine mechanic and a Ph.D candidate in Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota. His areas of interest are Theatre Historiography, Chicana/o History, and Indigenous Performance Research. He has taught classes on Chicanx music, art, Barrio culture, and service-learning with Latinx community organizations in the Twin Cities as an instructor for the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies. Mentored by the artistic and administrative leadership of Penumbra Theatre Company as the 2018-2019 August Wilson Fellow, David supports local theatre artists, educators, community organizers, and youth whose work centers the needs, challenges, and desires of historically marginalized and presently vulnerable communities in the Twin Cities. He sits on Mixed Blood Theatre’s Latino Advisory Council, the advisory board for the Alliance of Latinx Minnesota Artists (ALMA), teaches for Penumbra Summer Institute, and plays son jarocho music with the MN Jaraneros in partnership with El Colegio High School. Currently, he is collaborating with Theatre Novi Most as a dramaturg for Denim, a new play that uses the forms of historical pageantry, tableau vivant, and melodrama to investigate the mythology of the American character.
Johanna Keller Flores graduated with a degree in Theatre Arts and Psychology from Kalamazoo College and since then has been exploring the Twin Cities theatre scene as a new playwright, actress, and director. She interned with Mixed Blood Theatre and directed with 20% Theatre recently and is looking forward to new projects.
